Balkan Treat Box team will open Telva at The Ridge in Webster Groves in early 2023

Balkan Treat Box co-owners Loryn and Edo Nalic, along with other members of the Nalic family, will open a second concept, Telva at The Ridge and the Ridge Room, in Webster Groves in the first quarter of 2023. The coffee shop and its adjoining event space will be located in a space adjacent to gardening store Rolling Ridge Nursery at 60 N. Gore Ave. 

Telva at The Ridge will be a grab-and-go café offering Balkan-style, wood-fire roasted coffee in addition to a range of other coffee drinks, as well as open-faced sandwiches, salads, soups, pastries and more. The Ridge Room will be an event space capable of hosting 60 people for daytime and evening events. Family-style menus of American fare will be available for events at The Ridge Room. Bookings for March 2023 onward are available now via booking platfrom Disco!. Seating will be limited at Telva at The Ridge, but when the events space is not booked, the Ridge Room can be used to offer overflow seating for Telva customers. 

“We’re constantly looking at growth and evolution of Balkan Treat Box and what that means, and what more we can bring to the community,” Nalic said. “It's such a beautiful space, and Rolling Ridge is an iconic business here in Webster Groves, and it just seemed like such a great opportunity to match with them a little bit.” 

In additional to traditional espresso drinks, Telva at The Ridge will offer wood-fire roasted coffee following the method used in Bosnia as well as in other countries including Turkey and Greece. After the coffee is roasted, each cup is brewed in džezva (a small copper pot). Boiling the water and coffee grounds together creates a distinctively bold cup of coffee, often enjoyed with a sugar cube. Loryn Nalic described this as a more “ritualistic” coffee experience. “I think it's a nice extension of what we currently do,” said Loryn Nalic. “There's going to be some traditional aspects but also our own spin on things.” The café’s name is derived from the coffee sediment left at the bottom of cup, which fortune tellers in the Balkans use to read fortunes. 

Telva at The Ridge’s menu will include Balkan pastries including potivica (a babka-like sweet nut roll), palačinke (Balkan-style crepes), baklava and a baklava yogurt parfait. “We're not talking about a huge pastry case here,” Nalic said. “Everything is going to be really simple and tight. It's a cool concept that people can come enjoy and get to know us a little bit better.” Other dishes will include the Sloppy Mustafa, a moussaka-inspired twist on the Sloppy Joe. Another dish Nalic teased is a take on a Turkish egg dish called cilbir, which will include poached eggs served with garlic yogurt and tomato brown butter. “We'll be tapping into the flavor profiles that people are used to getting from us, but in a modern café-style way,” she said. 

The Nalic family also announced today that Edo’s brother and sister-in-law, Emir and Erna Nalic, have joined Loryn and Edo as co-owners of both Balkan Treat Box and Telva at The Ridge. Edo’s parents, Fadil and Zehta, will now also play an active role in the operation of the family’s restaurants, having recently successfully obtained U.S. green cards granting permanent resident status.  

For the latest updates, follow Telva at The Ridge and the Ridge Room on social media.